Use your iDevice as an extra display for your Mac - <AUTHOR> http://www.duetdisplay.com <comment><USER2> I wonder how they achieve "Zero lag". I've been using similar software ( AirDisplay [1] ) and the lagging is awful.

You have to be certified hardware manufacturer if you want to use the USB connection to transmit any data between the iPad and your Mac [2]. So my bet is they either use WiFi ( which can roughly get 60fps on retina resolution ) or Bluetooth 4. In both cases I think the refresh rate would not satisfy in a lot of cases, e.g. playing a YouTube video through their software on the iPad.

1: [https://avatron.com/applications/air- display/](https://avatron.com/applications/air-display/) 2: [https://avatron.com/support/faq-air-display/#toggle- id-13](https://avatron.com/support/faq-air-display/#toggle-id-13)

EDIT:

I've found more information on their facebook page [3]

> To setup, download and open duet on your Mac (for free) and on iOS.

> Connect your device using a lightning or 30 pin cable. Done.

> No need to worry about firewall settings, Wi-Fi speed or your 802.11n > network.

> Duet is secure, simple, and allows you to use your iOS and OS X devices in > harmony.

So I guess I was wrong with my bets. Maybe they got a hardware manufacturer license from Apple. Anyway launch is on 16th, so let's see.

3: [https://www.facebook.com/duetdisplay/info?tab=page_info](https://www.facebook.com/duetdisplay/info?tab=page_info)

<comment><USER3> My guess would be they're just using the shared documents area .

There's a number of libraries on the desktop that let you access an API to write to the shared documents area. I'd guess they'd just be piping a mp4 feed to this and the iOS would just be reading from there.

<comment><USER4> Is there any chance this approach could eventually be used on a Linux distro or Windows?

<comment><USER5> The technology already exists in X11. The problem is getting devices to act as display servers.

<comment><USER4> I haven't seen examples of folks trying to use iPads (for example) as X11 displays, likely because it's outside my area of expertise. Do you know of any examples?

<comment><USER6> iSSH includes an X11 display server, and I've had reasonable success using it with clients on an assortment of architectures, including a Tru64 VM running Open Genera. I wouldn't expect it to work well with something like video playback unless you've got a very fast and uncongested wireless network (or possibly a Lightning-to-Ethernet adapter, if such things exist), but if you don't need that kind of sustained responsiveness, it's at least worth a try.

<comment><USER4> I think the original product link isn't using wireless but instead depends on a wired connection. I've heard about using X11 over the internet but I'm worried that the lag would make this approach more annoying than effective.

It would be great to have a wired connection option on other operating systems besides the Mac.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been beta testing duet for about a month now. As a person that travels a lot, it's awesome. The developers have done an incredible job, and have been very responsive in fixing the bugs I've reported to them.

However, a couple of things to note. Firstly, this is lag free, but still not something you should play videos on. I'm not sure what the framerate is, but I'd be surprised if it's over 30fps. I believe this is probably a result of using USB.

Secondly, I never thought I'd say this, but retina is not your friend. On the new iPads, the OS X menu bar is _maybe_ a centimeter tall. Obviously, you can change the resolution, but I like hi-res, and you just see so little when you bump it up (keep in mind the new iPad is only 1024 by 768).

The app is the best it can be, but what I'd emphasize is that most people should really get a second monitor, if that's what they're looking for. I understand you could save some money, but iPads just don't offer enough real estate.

Again, kudos to the devs for doing a great job on the app though.

<comment><USER8> They claim 60fps with no lag.

<comment><USER9> That figure could refer to "typical" usage, where most of the screen doesn't have to update.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This isn't the first app that lets you do this, is it? It might be better (or worse) in performance, but the functionality has already been made available in the past, right? Just want to check.

Also, this is neat but I wish it were integrated into OS X + iOS as part of AirPlay. I love AirPlay and want to see it expand to cover all possible permutations (iOS -> OS X screen/audio/both sharing, as well as OS X -> iOS screen/audio/both sharing). That would go well under the Continuity moniker and is something Apple can do well thanks to their control.

Hopefully it's one of the minor new features in next Apple OS updates.

<comment><USER11> I've used an app called Air Display to do the same thing for quite a while, but instead of USB it connects over WiFi - which is convenient, but the refresh rate is slow. I used it mainly to have my chat client on a 3rd screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is really interesting technically, a couple tidbits I dug up looking in the mac app bundle:

1\. There are a couple of OpenGL shaders in the bundle for converting the screen image to HDTV color space/format (420v.fgsh) and some kind of passthrough.

2\. They appear to be using x264 to encode the screen with defaults of 1280x720, 1000kbit, superfast preset. (Defaults.plist)

So on the mac side, they're definitely capturing the screen and sending a streaming video. Not surprising, but the curious part is how they manage to get the iPad to stream in that data over USB. I suppose something like HTTP Live Streaming[1] could work. Place small files into the device's Documents area, and they get streamed. It would be awesome if something else was going on here - like a named pipe.

1\. [https://developer.apple.com/streaming/](https://developer.apple.com/streaming/)

<comment><USER13> My guess is it's using Apple's version of RNDIS ... iPad becomes a network peer of the Mac and streams video over that network.

But I don't believe that API is public, so I can't know for sure...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know this is nit-picky, but Duet is not "the first app that allows you to use your iDevice as an extra display". It's not even the second. There's an opportunity here for better copy to differentiate themselves.

Also, I've always thought this would reduce the life of your ipad. Has anyone noticed this?

<comment><USER15> How? Like the display burning out or something? Maybe something battery related?

<comment><USER14> Battery is definitely a concern, though it probably doesn't matter since it will be plugged up. The screen dimming might be a concern for me as well. Honestly though, now that I think about it, I've never been worried about that with my laptop, so I probably shouldn't care about it with my ipad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Best part of this: "All iPads."

My iPad 1 is pretty much a paperweight these days (I know, I know, never buy the first version of anything Apple). This could be a great new use for it.

<comment><USER17> Seriously. I was going to give away my first gen ipad but due to being so outdated it seemed more of an imposition than a gift.

<comment><USER18> What's wrong with it? I have a first gen iPad and it still works fine. In fact I almost wish it would die already so that I would have a valid excuse to buy a new one.

<comment><USER19> Did you upgrade iOS to version 5? I did, and it's never been the same since. I can now barely use the web browser without it crashing. Some domains are totally unusable; appears to be related to javascript use. Low-impact sites, such as HN, are OK. Other apps (such as the app store and many games) are very prone to crashing, too. There's very little I can use it for now without getting frustrated and giving up.

<comment><USER20> I have the same experience. I wish I could get a better web browser for it. my ipad 1 is just a video player/ book reader at this point (which isn't bad, just not grat)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > the first app that allows you to use your iDevice as an extra display for > your Mac

I stumbled upon iDisplay.com the other day. Can't recommend anything though, I'm not an apple user, I was looking for ways to replicate my android phone display in my desktop Linux.

<comment><USER22> Did you find anything worth using for your use case?

<comment><USER21> Not really: I tried android-screencast [1] but had to root my phone, the framerate was terrible, lots of crashes, touch gestures not really satisfying.

The other option was using genymotion, works well, but some apps can't be installed multiple times (whatsapp I'm looking at you).

If anyone knows a better way to do so, thank you in advance!

[1] [https://code.google.com/p/androidscreencast/](https://code.google.com/p/androidscreencast/)

<comment><USER23> [http://web.airdroid.com/](http://web.airdroid.com/) maybe? Lots of drawbacks, though, and not 1:1 mirroring I believe, so may not fit your needs. But seems to support whatsapp via screen mirroring + custom keyboard (probably?). Haven't tested since I'm currently on iOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here's the bit I was looking for: [http://www.duetdisplay.com/#compatibility](http://www.duetdisplay.com/#compatibility)

Compatible with all iPads, nice! I have an old iPad 1 lying around that runs very few of the apps I would like to use with it (Office suite and VLC, mostly), so I've been looking for a way to repurpose it, and this might be it.

<comment><USER25> Looks like they changed it to "All iPad hardware with iOS 6 and above". Which means no iPad 1. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> OK Guys After I installed and launched this MacOS app , it drastically slowed down my chrome and increased the chrome cpu usage. I am guessing something wrong with the duet app display driver.

so if anyone having the same problem like mine, please go to finder, search for "duetdisplay.kext" kernal extension, delete it and reboot your Mac. It should go back to normal.

</comment><comment><USER27> If it is really real-time this will be interesting. In combination with SideCar you could have a nice mobile dual-screen setup.

[http://www.cultofmac.com/247700/sidecar-hangs-your-ipad- from...](http://www.cultofmac.com/247700/sidecar-hangs-your-ipad-from-your- macbook-screen/)

</comment><comment><USER28> The iAccessories pictured looks really beautiful. Anyone know what brand it is?

<comment><USER29> Amusingly, these are sold by Evernote: [https://www.evernote.com/market/feature/pfeiffer](https://www.evernote.com/market/feature/pfeiffer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Screen emulation:

iDisplay: [http://www.getidisplay.com/](http://www.getidisplay.com/)

AirDisplay: [https://avatron.com/applications/air- display/](https://avatron.com/applications/air-display/)

iDevice preview:

LiveView: [http://www.zambetti.com/projects/liveview/](http://www.zambetti.com/projects/liveview/)

Skala (Pre)view: [http://bjango.com/mac/skalapreview/](http://bjango.com/mac/skalapreview/)

</comment><comment><USER31> If you want a proper external monitor to go with your laptop, invest in something like this: [http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1021217-REG/asus_mb168...](http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1021217-REG/asus_mb168b_15_6_led_lcd.html).

<comment><USER32> +1 for linking to the lowest price I can find for it on the web (199 vs Amazon's 266).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Well, the app is obviously working for some folks, but in my case it's junk. 13" MBA 2012 OS X 10.10.1 connecting with iPad Mini Retina or iPhone 5s (both iOS 8.1.2) using genuine Apple Lightning cable and direction connection (i.e. no USB hub). Most of the time the iOS app never gets beyond the "Connect to Mac" stage, even though the screen flashes on the Mac indicating new display hardware is available. Sometimes the iOS app gets to the "Launching Duet…" and hangs. Rarely, the iOS app actually becomes a display; however, when that happens my mouse is frozen (in a "stuttering" sort of way). Waste of good money for me.

</comment><comment><USER34> I have been testing this as well; it is really great for travelling. I put my air 2 on high res and find myself hardly using my normal screen anymore. There are a few bugs but those will be gone soon I reckon; the creators respond fast to mail.

</comment><comment><USER35> _Duet is the first app that allows you to use your iDevice as an extra display for your Mac._

What am I missing about this sentence that seems to make "the first" false in the face of things like Air Display?

<comment><USER36> It's tethered using lightning cable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Wrong. I have been using my iPad as an extra display for my MacBook Air for about 2 1/2 years using the AirDisplay (getairdisplay.com).

It is odd that this company would place a large lie as the first readable text.

<comment><USER38> You did not read the whole sentence.

Duet is the first app that allows you to use your iDevice as an extra display for your Mac using the Lightning or 30-pin cable.

This app uses a cable. All the other apps use wifi.

<comment><USER39> They have obviously changed the copy in the last few hours. The second half of that sentence ("Using…") was not there earlier.

<comment><USER38> You are right. My apologies.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20141215154238/http://www.duetdi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20141215154238/http://www.duetdisplay.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm happy this application made its way onto Hacker News. First heard it from a founding team member and thought the use-case is immense.

</comment><comment><USER41> I've occasionally used AirDisplay when doing minor HTML/CSS stuff (browser on iPad, emacs with impatient-mode on Mac) and it's useful, nice, but when doing heavier lifting lag kills it. I'll definitely be getting it tomorrow, and look forward seeing if I get to use it more or "as often as I did."

</comment><comment><USER42> It would be neat if they could figure out a way to let you use an iMac screen as a secondary monitor for a mbp.

<comment><USER43> This is already built-in: [http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14264](http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14264)

<comment><USER42> Woah, do you know if this works with the new retina display iMacs?

<comment><USER44> I'm here to confirm to you that it doesn't. Sorry buddy, wish it did myself. 5K is out of reach for most MBP's (if not all).

<comment><USER42> That's a bummer, it would be worth buying a new iMac for the screen alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I've been using Air Display for a long time for when I'm on the go. Does anybody have experience with both and which is better? Never really had problems with Air Display - if you don't expect it to work as a full external display. However lag has always been very manageable for me

<comment><USER46> Product launches tomorrow, so hardly any comparisons can be made. It seems to be promising - wired connection means higher bandwidth and improved latency. Supposedly can do Retina resolutions at 60hz.

<comment><USER45> I see now, I should have been reading better - my bad. I also read in this thread that Air Display had some troubles with Yosemite, but I haven't updated on my work machine yet so I hadn't seen these problems.

Streaming over USB seems promising though, I needed to plug in my iPad for the battery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> So uh, why is the marketing being done today when the release is tomorrow? I'll probably have forgotten about it by then. I wouldn't mind it though, the other ones (using wifi streaming) never really worked for me. And I wonder why this isn't a default feature in iOS / OSX.

<comment><USER35> _So uh, why is the marketing being done today when the release is tomorrow?_

They want your email, Twitter following, and other things that are more useful over time than your casual perusal after launch.

<comment><USER48> Actually a bit simpler, Business Insider released the article to fill their timeline not Duet's launch date. The app is still awaiting review and with the app store being so busy this season it's hard to give a hard date. Expected to be released later this week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've actually just downloaded their MacOS App and tried to install and launch it.

It now basically does nothing just blinking in the statues bar.

But I observe sudden CPU usage surge of this app from the activity monitor, not sure whether it is because of not pairing an iOS app or not

And also, my chrome feels significantly lagged.

<comment><USER49> mhm in my case once I opened the App it just disappeared. It moved itself to the Application directory, can't say I like this.

<comment><USER26> will it slow something down?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I would love to use this to share my Macbook screen on an iPad with a client. One screen seems to small for more than two people to share. Perhaps I could even connect multiple iPads for small presentations without a projector. All running in mirror mode.

</comment><comment><USER51> Anything like this available for Windows? Wouldn't be bad for an email/IM screen.

<comment><USER52> Any VNC app allows you to view and control your screen. I like RealVNC. The corresponding app on Android and iOS is called VNC Viewer. There are several companies/projects that offer this functionality.

<comment><USER51> I meant adding the iPad as an additional screen (with additional desktop space) for a Windows machine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> The line "An additional display increases productivity by up to 48%." is particularily funny.

I wonder how they "measured" this. A Macbook Air 11" \+ extra display is quite different from a Macbook Pro 15" \+ extra display.

<comment><USER54> "up to".

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> So where is it?!? It's the 16th and nowhere to be seen. BusinessInsider.com is now saying the 17th. I also wonder why they removed the Mac app from duetdisplay.com.

</comment><comment><USER46> Wonder how much bandwidth is required to drive this... My USB3.0 port is taken by an SSD hosting virtual machines, the other is hooked to a powered hub.

<comment><USER56> Assuming the video stream is compressed (MP4?) it shouldn't take too much. We're pretty used to streaming HD over the internet, so even USB2 should be able to handle it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I signed up for the newsletter and the download button appeared but it just hangs there and I can't download the app. How do I download the app?

</comment><comment><USER58> This looks cool - I'd definitely use it for emails. Has it not been done already though?

I have a question about the image - whats the stand used for the iPad?

<comment><USER59> [https://www.twelvesouth.com/product/compass2](https://www.twelvesouth.com/product/compass2)

12 south are pretty nice, but my wife had a bad experience with their SurfacePad iPhone case (really awesome case, but the leather wears heavily after 1-2 months)

<comment><USER60> Isn't the point of leather that it wears?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Am I a little too slow here or they just launched the Mac app without the iOS counterpart? Can't find it on App Store.

<comment><USER62> You're too fast, the release date for the iOS app is 16th december.

<comment><USER61> Ah. I see. Got a little confused because the Mac app is already available, so I thought it was just a matter of old sign up form not removed from site yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I'd really like this to work with my old iMac G5. It has a great monitor, but I struggle to find uses for it.

</comment><comment><USER64> Do I need an iDevice to view the video as well? Wont play here, would be interested to see more how this works.

<comment><USER65> You don't need an iOS device to watch the website's ad. It's an embedded YouTube video. Here's the direct link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVYimOiEya8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVYimOiEya8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Finally, something to do with my 1st generation iPad.

<comment><USER45> You could have used Air Display :) I do really like this use though, never thought of using my old iPad as a permanent extra display.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Fantastic! Been wanting this for, like, ever

</comment><comment><USER68> is it out yet?

</comment><comment><USER69> It is called AirDisplay and available since years: [https://avatron.com/applications/air- display/](https://avatron.com/applications/air-display/)

I think there was/is also another App available doing it.

<comment><USER70> ...and then yosemite came out, the the fps dropped from 25 to 2, and everyone stopped using it.

The same goes for DisplayPad.

The key here is that this is not a wifi streamcast.</comment></comment>


Apple Pulls 60 VPNs from China App Store - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40772375 <comment><USER2> Extensively discussed 2 days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14880659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14880659)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very sad. Though I have an alternative apple account outside CN, prepared for this long time ago, it still brings me some inconvenience. These days you can't trust any mega corp, they will eventually store our (Chinese citizen's) data in CN.

Another explanation is the upcoming 19th National Congress of CCP. Recently many policies have been published to restrict freedom of speech, indicating the leader now might desire another 5 year presidency.

<comment><USER4> >indicating the leader now might desire another 5 year presidency.

Might? The consensus outside China seems to be that another term is a forgone conclusion

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So does the Great Firewall do deep packet inspection? I take it that it does, and blocks any protocols that it detects that allow tunneling/traversing the firewall.

What if there was a method of changing the standard data formats to be randomized based on one time authorization codes? So your SSH/SSL/L2TP/etc was mangled around to something corresponding to a one time auth function. Basically pre-encrypting or obfuscating to avoid the deep packet inspection.

<comment><USER6> Have a look into the arms race between the Tor project and the Great Firewall of China.

<comment><USER7> Related to this, this an interesting paper that clarifies how the Great Firewall discovers Tor nodes by doing active probing: [https://nymity.ch/active-probing/imc2015.pdf](https://nymity.ch/active- probing/imc2015.pdf). No deep packet inspection is necessary when you pretend to be a Tor user and can identify the typical response for a Tor node.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps this could be defended against by probabilistic connection rejection?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Seems like something similar would happen in Russia this Fall too. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-internet- idUSKBN1A...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-internet- idUSKBN1AF0QI?il=0)

<comment><USER10> Hasn't Russia been trying to buddy up with China? And Turkey and the Philippines are going through interesting transitions as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Speedify got pulled Saturday morning: "your application will be removed from the China App Store because it includes content that is illegal in China, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines: 5. Legal"

</comment><comment><USER12> It sucks that you can't simply sideload apps like with Android (it is possible but has many restrictions). That's my main gripe with iOS. Without Apple's servers your device is virtually useless. Apple pulling those apps would be a non-issue.

<comment><USER13> As a developer who makes a living charging for apps, it's wonderful that you can't simply sideload apps like with Android.

<comment><USER14> I think the above comment is somewhat orthogonal to getting paid. The issue is that the Apple App Store is the only marketplace (realistically).

For example, I try to avoid the Mac App Store and buy/download direct from the vendor, where possible. I can't do that on iOS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What exactly is a "VPN app" for iOS? How does it work? I was under the impression that iOS natively supports VPNs through IPsec (and perhaps a few other technologies), and that it doesn't have tap/tun devices, nor it allows installing kernel drivers to create tap/tun devices so you could not use e.g. OpenVPN.

So what do these VPN apps actually do? Are they just a front-end for some service, but the phone still uses IPsec? If that is the case I assume you can configure IPsec manually?

Can someone explain? A link to some technical document would be amazing.

Thank you!

<comment><USER16> Apple allows to implement new VPN protocols as a sandboxed plugin that communicates with the network manager; this was implemented in iOS 9 as part of the larger ios8 effort of implementing sandboxed plugins like custom keyboards.

A vpn app contains such a plugin, plus the required user interface to login/configure the service. The user downloads the app, configures it providing credentials (or gets auto configured through a MDM) and then the vpn network appears in Settings, among the other VPNs created with a builtin protocol like IPSec.

The vpn plugin is obviously sandboxed with the minimum possible privileges.

This is a WWDC video explaining it: [https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2015/717/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2015/717/)

This is a blog post with a tutorial: [http://www.hideme.io/blog/en/ios-9-vpn- api-network-extension...](http://www.hideme.io/blog/en/ios-9-vpn-api-network- extension-udp/)

This is the entry point for the official documentation for all kind of network plugins, of which VPN is one: [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension)

<comment><USER15> Thank you very much for this explanation. It would be great if macOS worked the same. Personally, I try to use IPsec VPNs as much as possible, and then I use the built-in networking on my laptop, but quite often my clients require of me to use their Cisco AnyConnect VPN, which basically requires installing kernel modules.

Edit: actually after reading your link, it appears Network Extension is supported by macOS as well? That would be great news, if vendors would also update their apps to use it.

<comment><USER17> OpenVPN can do both routed and bridged connections on macOS without kernel modules (using a tun/tap device, as it does on other Unixish platforms). This requires administrative privileges though, which is what Apple's API is designed to avoid.

<comment><USER15> > OpenVPN can do both routed and bridged connections on macOS without kernel > modules (using a tun/tap device, as it does on other Unixish platforms).

But macOS doesn't have a tun/tap device. It needs kernel drivers to create one.

In either case, my main gripe is with Cisco AnyConnect, not OpenVPN. Cisco AnyConnect is very popular, I haven'd had any client use OpenVPN, though many do use IPsec.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just out of curiosity, how do businesses in China that have remote offices secure their communication? It must be hard without VPNs.

<comment><USER19> As far as I have been able to figure out and remember from my time in China...

Businesses are technically allowed to have VPNs. China still relies on foreign companies and a lot of Chinese companies rely on for example adwords to promote their business outside of CN. (this doesn't mean it's uncommon for CN to try to hack into these VPN tunnels, but the goal is not blocking access, and more about corporate espionage).

The Great Firewall also operates on a (customer) ISP level (rules and DPI varies per ISP and city) and not so much on outgoing traffic.

Most western companies rent fiber directly that is not affected by the GFW.

For example I know they could easily spot OpenVPN traffic and send RST packets to the host (also any DNS request with _vpn_ is often send to a honeypot). IPsec had better chances of success (perhaps because that was less common?).

The VPN (and information control) targets mostly local Chinese. They don't care too much about tourists (collateral damage).

<comment><USER20> When I travel there I noticed that if I am roaming on the mobile network (with U.S. carrier SIM card but service provided via China Unicom), Facebook was accessible, do you know why?

<comment><USER21> You data is routed as phone network data to your U.S. carrier, who has the gateway to the internet. This is because mobile data protocols were originally not designed with the Internet in mind, but as a separate network. The internet gateways were added on later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's fine, the Chinese piracy apps will continue to support freedom of information. </snark>

The irony of that is alarming.

</comment><comment><USER23> Now, if china makes them pull shadowsocks(R) clients from the apple/app/itunes store...then we'll know they are serious. Sorry for all the vpners in china on apple, at least you can go get a cheap android device in china and monkey around and patch together a mobile vpn based solution of some sort.

</comment><comment><USER24> [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R706isyDrqI](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R706isyDrqI)

Perhaps someone should show Tim Cook.

</comment><comment><USER25> ssh -D 12345 email@example.com

<comment><USER26> Unfortunately, this method has been blocked years ago. Well, not blocked completely, but the speed slows down to zero (packet loss grows up to 100%) within a couple of minutes making it practically unusable.

<comment><USER27> Is normal SSH blocked too? How can they determine that the SSH is used as a tunnel?

<comment><USER28> It's possible to detect even if the packets can't be decrypted (there are commercially available solutions for corporate firewalls as well). This post gives some interesting insight into some of their blocking capabilities.[1]

[1] [http://blog.zorinaq.com/my-experience-with-the-great- firewal...](http://blog.zorinaq.com/my-experience-with-the-great-firewall-of- china/)

<comment><USER29> Can anyone in China confirm if the solution in this article (padding the packets to random lengths) still works? I'm heading out to China later this year and it would be nice to have this as a backup if my VPN doesn't work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> i can still download vpn clients from the us apple store from china, it's not a big deal, thus far, though annoying.

<comment><USER31> The assertion made on NPR this morning was that it was likely that the 'approved' VPN clients that remain on the App Store are likely to have backdoors to the state.

I have no knowledge on that, so if that's an absurd assertion, please feel free to let me know.

<comment><USER32> Can't find any NPR news on that except this old story that mentioned nothing related to backdoor or approved VPN:

[http://www.npr.org/tags/540281875/vpn](http://www.npr.org/tags/540281875/vpn)

Any links?

<comment><USER31> It was the radio Q&A segment. The speaker had a British accent, but I don't recall the name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> does stunnel over openvpn bypass the GFW ?

</comment><comment><USER34> OKay. Make China North Korea. #MCNK

</comment><comment><USER35> What is their alternative?

<comment><USER36> Ask Google[1].

1\. Google complied with the China's censorship laws for a while, but since no good deed goes unpunished - they got hacked by China. Only afterwards did they decide to leave the Chinese market altogether and no longer censor their Chinese results. They do get blocked now, from time to time (or depending on keyword, I forget).

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> China : "Jump!" Apple : "How high?"

<comment><USER38> Only thing that concerns Apple is to make money. They don't have a moral ground on issues like these because they are a business.

Don't tell us you would say "no".

<comment><USER39> Speak for yourself, dude.

I would say "no". Tons of us would say "no".

There are various things on this spectrum that any business can choose to do, or not do: use child labor, use political prison labor, dump toxic waste in public streams and rivers (after funding lobbyists to make it legal), etc.

<comment><USER40> Even simpler, they could just allow sideloading of apps so they don't have to be the gatekeeper defending China's interests.

<comment><USER39> You're absolutely right; there's a moral dimension there, too.

(And not just in China. For instance, Apple banned an app I used to keep rough tabs on how many civilians my democratically elected government was killing with drone strikes.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> "Where we're going, you'll need no VPN!" (spoiler: it's an internment camp)</comment>


The Attention Economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue2_4/goldhaber/index.html

<comment><USER3> A great article that explains a lot of things that happen on the web.

For starters take google, they sell attention, to the advertiser´s products, viewers might then decide to buy something; qvc showcases products; your friends on facebook, etc. grab your attention. I guess all of the advertising industry lives on attention and therefore much of the entertainment industry (games, movies, news, tv, social networks) too. Maybe even competing with the education industry.

Other tools (wesabe) save you time so you can direct your attention to what you are interested in.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a very interesting indirect link between the article and Google: one of the people thanked at the end of the article is Terry Winograd, an AI pioneer who also happened to be Larry Page's grad supervisor at Stanford, right about the time this article was written! Winograd is also a co-author on at least one of the early PageRank articles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> " Individual attention getters of all sorts will find it ever easier to get attention directly through the Web, without any corporate packaging necessary."

a.k.a Tila Tequila

"In a full-fledged attention economy the goal is simply to get either enough attention or as much as possible. Recall now what I pointed out earlier: if you have a person's full attention, you can get them to perform physical acts, ranging from moving their eyes to follow you, to raising their hands, to applauding, to bringing you a glass of water, to handing you a sandwich, or, as is not uncommon in the case of rock groupies or sports fans, having sex with you (to cite a notorious example)."

Will the next cult arise online? I remember a scene in a Sci-Fi novel (was it Snowcrash) where a online textbook empowered thousands of teenage girls.

Still reading this fascinating article. It puts a dry academic perspective on the madness of Facebook/RockYou/et al.

<comment><AUTHOR> The novel sounds like The Diamond Age.

Regarding your last remark, I think it's really interesting that the article was published in 1997, and is based on an article from (I think) 1993. Effectively, the author predicted some of the things you mention, and probably a lot of things that haven't happened yet.

<comment><USER4> The author mentions money flowing towards attention centers in the attention economy. Interestingly, he does mentions advertising as paid attention - <USER2> as a money source for attention getters.

How will people be paid in the attention economy? Micropayments? Transaction fees? The brand-called-you. Facebook Beacon v10? I think it's very much up in the air.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Short summary of the posted link: It's now a commonplace idea that online reputation and attention often translate into real world economic gains. This article (and a similar article the same author wrote for Wired in the early 90s) seems to have been one of the original sources for this idea, and still makes for stimulating reading. Goldhaber also has an interesting blog at <http://www.goldhaber.org/>

</comment><comment><USER5> I recommend checking "Welcome to the experience economy", from B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore in Harvard Business Review July-August 98.</comment>


Ray Kurzweil's 'singularity' prediction supported by prominent AI scientists - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/ray-kurzweils-singularity-prediction-supported-by-prominent-ai-scientists <comment><USER2> Meanwhile, just a few submissions down on Hacker News: "About Moore's Law – it's dead"</comment>


Kierkegaard's Rebellion - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/11/10/kierkegaards-rebellion/ <comment><USER2> Kierkegaard has occasional witty, funny, or insightful passages in his books. But overall I found him to be really incoherent, and to ramble way too much in super long digressions about subjects that seem to have little to do with the theme he's trying to write about. So his writing winds up being all over the place and chaotic, making it hard to figure out what the bleep he's trying to say. It's really frustrating, and it seems that mostly he's not saying much, but just rambling.

<comment><USER3> Lol. You just described EVERY philosopher.

Try Kants foundation of the metaphysics of morals.

Or Nitzsches stuff.

Its all madness but brilliant stimulating madness.

<comment><USER4> Heaven save those who have to handle Heidegger.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Once again a long time has gone by in which I have not been able to concentrate on the slightest thing -- I will now try to get started again"

"Eternal child"

It strikes me that Kierkegaard had ADD as discussed here goo.gl/otcRc6

A little tongue-in cheek, but could Existentialism ≈ ADD

Existential angst may not entirely derive from "a negative feeling arising from the experience of human freedom and responsibility" but could be the call of the real world to a distracted soul.

Can explain a few other things:

Camus' car crash

Sartre sending his Nobel rejection letter too late for the decision

Litres of coffee consumed and cartons of Gauloise smoked

<comment><USER6> Except Camus wasn't driving the car when it crashed. His friend Michel Gallimard was.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I have won the DV lottery but need some help - <AUTHOR> 	Hello,
I have recently graduated as an Electronics Engineer. My Green Card visa appointment is on the second week of December.
I need to find a job before my interview or probably I am going to lose my chance to get a Green Card because of financial problems.
Here is some of my experiences:
- FPGA, Verilog, PicoBlaze, MicroBlaze, OpenRISC
- Python, C (intermediate)
- UNIX System Admisitration , Bash (intermediate)
- HTML, PHP (beginner - intermediate)
If you want I can send you my CV.
Thank you <comment><USER2> Most people in the US I talked to have no idea the DV lottery exists. That might be different for the HN crowd though. Still, I would resubmit under a different title. And it would make things easier if you have some contact details in your user profile.

All the best for the interview. How hard it is depends also on your current citizenship. Where are you from?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I am going to change the title and submit again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It isn't very likely that you will find much help here. This is a sign of a lack of initiative. So, if you didn't already, I suggest starting to look for jobs yourself instead of letting employers look for you. Just my two cents.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have applied more than 150 different places but none of them return.

They just sent me an e-mail template starting with "Unfortunetely.."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have you tried the jobs section[1] of HN?

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs](https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs)

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course I did.</comment></comment>


Google to reportedly kill Voice, integrate it into Hangouts - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2109265/google-to-reportedly-kill-voice-integrate-it-into-hangouts.html <comment><USER2> Why is google willfully sabotaging every great product they have all in the name of one terrible one that nobody wants?

Up until about 2010 or so, they were absolutely legendary for their skillful execution of ideas - just the right interface, feature-set, and balance. Time and time again, everything they did they knocked out of the park.

And then, something changed.

Now they are changing what they did right by taking the dumbest moves over and over again - the ones that completely destroys their credibility and alienates their userbase.

Is there a single user anywhere who wants this? I really don't get it.

If google did a survey:

"Are you happy with google voice or would you rather have it in our wacky skype knockoff that you use with our goofy facebook clone?"

I'm trying to think of what it would look like if other companies decided to do a similar thing. It would be like if say, General Mills came out with a terrible wretched artificial sweetener and then decide to put it in every product they sell because well, it's their sweetener - of course they should completely dismantle all of their successful lines in the name of their incredibly unsuccessful one. Duh!

I really hope that they find the John-Scully's who are internally making all these retarded decisions and stop doing what they say - or else they're well on their way to being a has-been. Yet another great company that somehow put a bunch of ivy-league fortune-500 trainwreck-types in charge and then trusted them until it was too late.

In 1999 my friend called Google The next altavista. At this rate, he may be right.

<comment><USER3> I like it, but then i generally like the products as a whole.

\- I've been using Voice for ages, with little to no improvement. This will bring lots of improvement, instead of me worrying about Voice like it's the next Reader. \- I've also been using Plus for ages, so i don't have a fear it either.

I understand this Plus requirement is annoying to some, but i honestly don't get the resentment.

To me, Plus is google doing what they should have done with Wave. Made a product, and invested in it. As a company, integrating your products is not a bad thing, it's a good thing, imo. I'm sure many will scream "But not when your users hate your other product!" and.. well.. tough shit heh.

If it ends up being a terrible move then they'll pay for it and die out. But i don't think it's a wrong move for them to try.

As it is, Voice is a wasteland, and it actually getting some love and attention will be awesome. I'm looking forward to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, this kind of sucks.

I use a Google Voice number that is associated with a Gmail account that I do not use for any other purpose (Hangouts/Talk or otherwise). It doesn't even have a Google+ account associated with it.

It's nice to have single number that can ring all my lines.

If/when this is killed, what's the alternative?

(Article appears to be down/inaccessible for me).

<comment><USER5> Read the article. They are not killing Google Voice. They are rolling it into Hangouts.

<comment><USER6> ... which will then require you to log in with a Google Plus-upgraded account. I have two Gmail accounts, and can't use the hangouts feature on one of them (in the browser or through their client) without enabling Plus.

<comment><USER7> Google's login system is horribly broken. They seem to have to reinvent a method for handling the multi account scenario in every product.

The resistance to adding G+ to accounts seems Sisphyean. Larry Page clearly envisions a common integrate identity systems across the product tree and I don't think anyone is going to stop him.

<comment><USER8> A common identity system across the product tree is not a bad thing actually. If it were there from the beginning nobody would complain about this whole thing now.

The problem is that they wanted to brand this move as "hey g+ify your account".

It probably has something to do with the change in terms and conditions. I guess they could have forced everybody to this new terms and conditions (or leave) but instead they let people choose to use google products with the old terms and conditions by letting users to actively opt in to g+ (ehm, some might say "tricked", but that's another story).

What I wanted to say is that usually people look at this whole thing as an evil move, but hey all the companies around amend their terms and conditions and usually don't let you a choice about whether you want to be part of a new incarnation of the service, or not yet.

Note: I'm not talking in favour or against the actual terms and conditions (e.g. the real name policy), this is an orthogonal issue. I have the feeling that in the end it all boils down to this.

Anyway, this is so confusing. The fact that we are still talking about all this crap means that the was a failure in communication.

I wish there was a way to switch to this new identity system, and then disable G+ for your account. This would make so many people happy and probably it won't reduce the number of new G+ users by much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For people like me who follow this space closely, this is not news. And to be fair, the article doesn't really claim it as news.

The Google Voice team was rolled into the Hangouts team long ago. The only thing they haven't done is roll the Google Voice app's functionality into the Hangouts app.

<comment><USER9> I don't understand why you'd roll all of your products into something that has a terrible user experience. I'm a long-time Google/Android user, and its just painful using Hangouts. I disabled it and switched to Telegram.

<comment><USER10> A number of security professionals have expressed serious concern about Telegram, including Moxie Marlinspike [0] [1] and Geoffroy Couprie [2].

It's really painful to see Telegram gaining popularity, when it has such glaring errors.

You should instead use OTR on Jabber (ChatSecure [3]), or TextSecure [4] (which now has an Internet delivery mechanism).

[0]: [http://thoughtcrime.org/blog/telegram-crypto- challenge/](http://thoughtcrime.org/blog/telegram-crypto-challenge/)

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6936539](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6936539)

[2]: [http://unhandledexpression.com/2013/12/17/telegram-stand- bac...](http://unhandledexpression.com/2013/12/17/telegram-stand-back-we-know- maths/)

[3]: [https://chatsecure.org/](https://chatsecure.org/)

[4]: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thoughtcri...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thoughtcrime.securesms&hl=en)

<comment><USER11> Those criticisms aren't about Telegram's UI as compared to Hangouts, though. At a minimum, your communication through Telegram is as secure as your communication through a google property.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The most useful feature of Google Voice to me is the voicemail transcription. It's not perfect, but it's good enough it saves me from having to listen to the voicemail about 90% of the time.

There are plenty of other voip/call forwarding services, but are there any that duplicate that functionality?

<comment><USER13> This is all that I use Google Voice for. I love having a transcribed voicemail emailed to me, _for free_. Are there any other options out there? I've noticed lately that the Google Voice app sucks - the UI is unintuitive and is painfully slow to refresh my messages. I'd be happy to switch if there is an alternative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I assume existing Voice numbers will at least continue working/forwarding? That's my main concern. I have a few different Google Voice numbers I use for different purposes, and my wife actually uses one as her primary number (against my recommendation). I've kind of expected something "bad" to happen to Voice for a while, but as long as the forwarding continues to work this isn't the end of the world for me.

</comment><comment><USER15> For some reason the site isn't loading for me. If they want to integrate the features of Voice into Hangouts then that's great. The Voice app has been utterly neglected for years.

If they want to kill all the Voice features, then I'll be very disappointed.

<comment><USER16> Do you have HTTPS Everywhere installed? I had to disabled it for pcworld.com before the article would load.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> this move would be a prelude to the cancellation of voice (after it flounders in its new forced home):

[http://www.gwern.net/Google%20shutdowns](http://www.gwern.net/Google%20shutdowns)

(note google voice is the highest cancellation risk predicted)

<comment><USER18> Voice isn't being "cancelled," its features are just being integrated into the service it should have been in to start with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ugh, I hate that SMS is conflated with Hangouts as it is. It causes notifications for work-related chat to get mixed in with notifications for personal text messages on my phone. Can anyone suggest alternative SMS clients for Android?

<comment><USER20> TextSecure! Nobody I know uses it, so the encryption/privacy features are basically useless, but it's a fast, well-designed, pretty app regardless. It also has a feature I love: persistent notifications for unread texts.

<comment><USER21> Seconding this, switched to TextSecure when they combined SMS and Hangouts. It is an excellent SMS app replacement. The crypto doesn't get in your way, even when almost none of your contacts also use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> While all of this consolidation of their myriad overlapping services and products into a small suite of core services that offer strong featuresets makes sense, I'm constantly astonished how _bad_ they've done at it. Bombarding users with annoying questions about Plus (and the questions are annoying regardless of your opinions on Plus - they never should've even tried to make Plus optional, just enable it but keep it out of the freaking way) and screwing up these transitions... does anybody _like_ any of these new Google apps? And these new apps are increasingly awful or nonexistent outside of Android/Chrome. Can you even send a message through hangouts without installing the browser plug-in? Do they even have a browser-version of Currents?

</comment><comment><USER23> The issues for a LONG TIME Voice user:

1) Voice Mailbox - What Now?

2) My mobile phone number IS my Google Voice Number (Sprint)

3) Ring at multiple locations (Isn't valuable to me anymore)

4) The google.com/voice web page is a lifesaver for searching through my text, and voice mail. (Most Needed Function) _____

<comment><USER5> I am also a long-time Google Voice user. It's been my primary number for about 5 years now.

The issues you raise are all irrelevant, except for #4. They are not killing off Google Voice phone numbers or functionality. They are just rolling it into Hangouts.

I don't know what they are planning to do with their google.com/voice web property though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> They also removed the last bit of Jabber interoperability in the new Google Mail chat/hangouts frontend.

I used to be able to talk to my Jabber frieds on both Android and Gmail/Web. They dropped federation on Android with the move to Hangouts, and -- unsurprisingly -- they're now doing the same for Gmail/Web as it's moving to Hangouts.

I'm eyeing TextSecure as a replacement IM tool. Sort of hoping the TextSecure desktop app comes around before the Gmail Hangout integration becomes mandatory; but as cool as TextSecure may be from a security perspective, they haven't exactly blown me away with the timeliness of their releases. ;)

<comment><USER25> > they're now doing the same for Gmail/Web as it's moving to Hangouts.

Moving? Hasn't this been the case for the last two years?

<comment><USER24> I'm referring to this: [http://gmailblog.blogspot.de/2013/05/try-out-new- hangouts-ex...](http://gmailblog.blogspot.de/2013/05/try-out-new-hangouts- experience-in-gmail.html)

It's still opt-in, at least for me.

<comment><USER25> Huh. Yeah, it just showed up for me one day and I continued ignoring it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As more and more of these get GPlused, the more repuslive they are become. Among all the IM apps out there, I think hangouts sucks the most. More than the fb messenger. 2-3 years back, a lot of people I knew were using gtalk. Infact that was the default IM. We use watsapp now, or fb in case we don't have a number, but not hangouts. This massive transition clearly happened during the gtalk to hangouts change and I don't think I will go back unless the experience becomes better.

<comment><USER27> gtalk is still the default IM in pretty much everyone I know from different social circles. Even fb messenger during work hours I tend to see pretty much everyone in gtalk while fb is very sparse. And don't get me started on whatsapp, I don't know a single person who uses that, and nobody seems to even be aware what it is when I ask around. I guess they all have different use cases. I for one have been and will stay with gtalk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hey Google I don't want everything in Google+

<comment><USER29> Your comment reminds me of recent article on HN, which I can't find at the moment. The jest of the entry was that G+ isn't for the customer, it's for google to organize its data on you. Here is another article by The Guardian that touches on a similar sentiment. [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2013/jun/04/googl...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2013/jun/04/google- plus-the-matrix)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Hey All, definitely check out SendHub as a Business Replacement for google voice. It has all of the same features (and plenty GV doesn't). In my opinion SendHub also has better apps and a way better web interface.

Also, I'm a Co-Founder here at SendHub. So if you have any questions on getting this to work please drop us a line. (email@example.com)

<comment><USER31> How do minutes and texts work when all of it redirecting to another number? In other words, I already pay for unlimited text and several hundred minutes as part of my mobile phone plan. The vast majority of my communications are forwarded to that phone. Would I have to pay SendHub again for those minutes and messages if they were routed through SendHub?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I saw this coming once Hangouts gained SMS compatibility. The nice thing is, I won't have 2 separate apps to view all my messages. I'll be able to make calls and text via Voice(within hangouts) for work, receive normal texts and calls in hangouts, and still be able to chat up with my circles!

</comment><comment><USER33> This isn't necessarily new news (they spoke of it last year, albeit once), but this is gaining some steam again.

I personally, would like to see some integration. But sometimes, Google just tries to G+-ify everything a bit too much. Ex: Latitude and YouYube comments.

Hopefully this will just be a nice seamless transition of the GV sms messaging into Hangouts. I could see that as useful.

</comment><comment><USER34> I just really hate the concept of them somewhat "making" you have a G+ account. Good for a business perspective I guess, but limits consumers. I have no desire to create a G+ account and I'm somewhat annoyed that it seems to be somewhat mandatory for more and more of Google's' Services.

</comment><comment><USER35> Anyone know of alternatives?

I bought a jailbroken iPhone and have been just using a iPad sim card in it for the last little while. This way I pay about $10/month for enough data to get talk / text and the ability to surf the net a lot cheaper!

Edit: Or maybe I will still be able to do this once it is integrated with +.

<comment><USER5> Which AT&T plan are you using? I'm about to write up an article about going data-only and could use some more reference plans besides T-Mobile's.

<comment><USER35> I am actually in Canada, so I use Bell (This is the plan: [http://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Cell_phone_plans/iPad_data_plans...](http://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Cell_phone_plans/iPad_data_plans/Flex_plan.tab)). I guess it's actually usually around $20 (sometimes I don't go over the 10MB plan if I am on Wifi lots). This is the best I could find for something in Canada.

Let me see that article when you are done! If I move to the US I'll be looking to try the same thing there.

Edit: I am looking at Bolt. Looks awesome. I hope in a few years phone numbers just don't exist. (well, abstracted out).

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the link to Bell. We're adding a catalog of data-only plans around the world and tutorials about how to get them to the Bolt site.

And I agree about phone numbers. They should just be the IP addresses of communication. But nobody's developed a good-enough DNS equivalent (yet). We still all rely on a local cache of numbers in our phones' address books.

<comment><USER35> Cool! I have also heard of a few other related things:

[http://www.fongo.com/](http://www.fongo.com/) (And I thought there was another one out of the Waterloo area but can't find it, maybe it was this. )

[http://www.freedompop.com/](http://www.freedompop.com/)

[https://angel.co/signal-mobile](https://angel.co/signal-mobile)

Ya, exactly. When I meet someone. Why not be able to just start typing their name and add them that way. If they change their number it can be updated automatically so I have the new one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I've been using Voice as my primary number since the GrandCentral days. They better not fuck that up too.

Edit: For those who say "it's free don't complain" I reply: "Then Google should bill me. I'll pay."

</comment><comment><USER37> Voice never came to the UK anyway...

</comment><comment><USER38> How long before you need a G+ account to use Google Search?

</comment><comment><USER39> Any idea why Hangouts won't work on Firefox?

</comment><comment><USER40> Introducing the Google+ Hangouts Car.

</comment><comment><USER41> NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!</comment>


Gelion batteries to help power the renewables revolution - <AUTHOR> https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2019/02/27/gelion-batteries-to-help-power-the-renewables-revolution.html <comment><USER2> Article and website have almost no useful data around performance, sizing, longevity, energy density, even cell voltage, I was most interested but couldnt find any info before I lost interest to help me identify the edge case it attacks.

I sent them an email, see what comes back.</comment>


Show HN: Faqt – a lightweight, knowledge base (now for teams) - <AUTHOR> https://faqt.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Co-founder here: we posted an individual version of Faqt on HN about a year ago, and we got a lot of great feedback. Chief among them was a collaborative version of the app. After a whole bunch of iterations and a few hundred beta users, we're happy to announce the team version. Let me know if you have any questions!</comment>


Man arrested for filming Boston police with cellphone camera sues city, officers - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/02/02/man_arrested_for_taping_police_sues_city_officers/ <comment><USER2> It seems clear to me that police actively carrying out their duty have (and should have) immensely more obligations and fewer rights than citizens generally.

For example, while I certainly don't have the right to demand identification from a random person on the street, I better have the right to demand identification from a police officer giving me an order.

<comment><USER3> True in most cases, but I think there might be exceptions like when dealing with an emergency like a hostage situation.

<comment><USER4> That's the kind of logic that got us into this mess. At no point, regardless of the situation, should a police officer be above the law.

<comment><USER5> Just trying to point out situations where this can not be followed to the letter. If someone is speeding away from a robbery the police should not be allowed to speed after them? If someone is currently robbing a store should the police not be allowed to trespass to stop them? I do agree that they should be held to a higher standard. I also think if malicious intent is evident in their actions they should be given harsher sentences because they are given so much public trust. But they must be allowed to break some laws or they wont be able to do their jobs at all.

<comment><USER6> There are countless tragedies caused by police officers speeding after criminals. So I would say no, they shouldn't go speeding off after the criminals. As the cops often say, "You can't outrun radio waves!"

In the robbing store case, there is probable cause to enter the premises.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is an important case to watch, and I think the precedent set will have compounding effects in the future, either leading to a more or less transparent government, depending on which way it falls.

<comment><USER3> I'm a little surprised at the tone of your observation. I thought U.S. citizens were the most empowered on the planet.

More transparent government is clearly the desirable. If the outcome of this case can determine that, then the outcome should be in favor of transparent government. If the law of the land doesn't agree, then it's time it's changed; isn't it?

Well that's what it looks like to me trapped under an oppressive government on the other side of the globe, idealizing the freedom of American citizens.

<comment><USER8> Are you being sarcastic? I honestly can't tell.

At any rate, in a Common Law system like the US's (and most other British Inheritors'), the outcome of a court case like this _decides_ the law. The system relies on the judges to interpret the constitution's protections of rights. What they say goes. Of course, it can be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court but then that's the final word and the lawmakers don't have much to do with it.

<comment><USER9> _lawmakers don't have much to do with it_

Traditionally they don't, but they could if they wanted to. If the Supreme Court rules that something is not legal, the legislature can make it legal. The Constitution can also be amended, making the issue of constitutionality null.

Some of the most powerful Constitutional protection is in the form of amendments; the Bill of Rights. Technically, the freedom of speech is implicit in the text of the main body of the Constitution. (Any powers not specifically given to the Federal government falls to the States and People.) But the explicit text of the First Amendment has made it much easier for the People to retain their right to Free speech and press.

<comment><USER8> Well, yes. But an amendment is kind of a Big Deal. I have my doubts that this issue is of the type to inflame The People sufficiently that such ponderous wheels might be set in motion.

You're right, though, thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Now, Glick - a criminal defense attorney, _according to his lawyer_ "

I don't get it. Have Journalistic standards slipped so much that they couldn't even corroborate this simple piece of information? Or is it something I'm missing?

<comment><USER11> Because it's a comment on an ongoing case, the newspaper probably attempted to corroborate the fact with Glick himself, but he probably referred them to his lawyer. It's the smart thing to do, even (some might say especially) if you're a lawyer yourself. Comments on an ongoing case should go through the lawyers involved instead of the individuals involved: they have to be very careful about what they say so as not to tank the case.

<comment><AUTHOR> I noticed that too. But it's not hard to verify his occupation, or at least that he used to practice law, either through court documents, LexisNexis, or newspaper archives.

One other thing that came up last night on the local public radio station: They interviewed someone from the ACLU who said that if the camera was hidden during the taping, that would be a violation of the law (it wasn't, apparently).

That made me wonder: If I had a Web cam on my computer facing outside the window, and it is not obvious that it is a camera (on an iMac it's impossible to see from more than a few feet away) and it captured such an arrest, could I be arrested for secretly taping the scene?

<comment><USER12> Only if you are recording audio as well. The wiretapping law applies to secretly recording audio, not video.

Edit: A good read, from the RCFP... <http://www.rcfp.org/taping/>

<comment><USER13> It's not very secret if you're holding up a cell phone.

And if that is decidedly secret, then nobody should care as long as the unlawful audio is removed before distribution.

I use the term unlawful audio because only the personally identifying information should need to be censored/removed.

<comment><USER12> I used "secret", probably shouldn't have.

The article I referenced says that it varies by state, especially with regards to consent. Some states are single-party, some states require all party consent.

But if you're on the street in public, you'd think everything is fair game... especially if you're a public servant.

It's nice to see someone taking a stand and clearing it up (in one state at least).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So if this case succeeds and the two party consent law isn't valid in public, does that mean that the police could follow a suspect around and record their conversations with a directional mic without a warrant? (as long as the conversations took place in public)

This might end up being a case of "be careful what you wish for".

<comment><USER15> With the obligatory "I Am Not a Lawyer" out of the way, I should point out that in many places (it varies state by state) two-party-consent is not required. Two party notification is required. There can be some significant differences in some cases.

Again, far from an expert in law anywhere, but my understanding is that in most states you can go around in public openly recording conversations with no problems. The issue comes when you try to do it illicitly. A microphone that is obvious would cause no problems, but one that is concealed or otherwise nonobvious could be an issue.

If anyone really knows what they are talking about, I would be most appreciative for confirmation or correction.

As to how it should be, yes, I think that you should be able to record anything legally as long as the other party has no reasonable expectation of privacy (and yes, without their notification or consent as long as they do not then have a reasonable expectation of privacy). If you do something in a public place, you should assume it is being recorded. If you do something in the privacy of your own home or a bathroom stall, you should be able to do it with no fear of being recorded without your consent.

I know this begs the question of where we draw the line between public and private, but I think there will be little disagreement on most cases. Those fringe cases where there is disagreement I would tend to lean towards allowing recordings.

I think this should be true of all citizens, but I think it becomes especially important of public servants such as Police Officers whom the public has a right to demand accountability from. The Law Enforcement Agencies in America are fantastic, and I have the highest praise for them in terms of their performance and the effect they have on the streets of America. But they should never forget that they are public servants and (at least indirectly) accountable to the public in a Democracy.

<comment><USER16> IANAL. That said, I believe the relevant law is <http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/272-99.htm> and the key element will prove to be whether using a cell phone as a video/audio camera would constitute a "secret" recording of audio as required by definition B4. (Apparently, with Glick's original case dismissed, there's a chance that it would not suffice.)

In terms of his suit, anyone can sue anyone for anything. It's the winning that's hard. I can't imagine any cause for action on impairing his freedom of speech, nor that sufficient probable cause did not exist to effect the arrest. While I don't like how the law is written, and may not agree with the premise, the law is the law and it's easy for an officer to believe that they have probable cause for an arrest under that law. Frankly, I think they had PC for the arrest, even as I wish they didn't and wish that even if they had, they'd have chosen not to make that arrest. I can't see how Glick can meaningfully win this case...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If the officers in question just do their work normal within the law they should not be afraid to be filmed, the behavior of these police officers is at least fishy in that perspective. Also it had to occur sooner or later that they arrested the wrong person, a criminal defense attorney no less.

</comment><comment><USER18> Being Boston, I'm surprised the cops didn't paint it as a bomb scare. Boston PD has to be neck-and-neck with LAPD for most corrupt police department in the country.

<comment><USER19> 1-31-07 Never Forget

<comment><USER18> The Abu Ghraib protester was first [http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/3/boston_protester_faces_...](http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/3/boston_protester_faces_felony_charges_for)

Then the ATHF thing you referenced [http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/01/mooninites_from_one...](http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/01/mooninites_from_one_of_th.html)

Then a freaking traffic counter that had been put in place by the department of transportation [http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/28/boston-police- blow-u.ht...](http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/28/boston-police-blow-u.html)

and the MIT student with the LED sweater <http://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html>

These are only the ones I know of. Maybe there are more cases of Boston PD going nutso over some imagined bomb threat. It reminds me of the aftermath of 9/11, all of the soccer moms in my rural home town, running around and buying up all the bottled water and duct tape in town, like they expected The Terr'ists to be interested in bombing Middelofnowheresburg, PA.

I'm sure Boston is a great city, but stories like these make me never want to visit there, lest I worry if I forgot a half-finished Arduino blinky-light project in the back seat of my car. I don't view Boston as _that_ important of a city for someone to want to bomb it.

<comment><USER20> _It reminds me of the aftermath of 9/11, all of the soccer moms in my rural home town, running around and buying up all the bottled water and duct tape in town, like they expected The Terr'ists to be interested in bombing Middelofnowheresburg, PA._

Keep in mind that Flight 11 and Flight 175 - the two aircraft that struck the World Trade Center towers - departed from Boston Logan International Airport. It makes you wonder what happened internally in the Boston PD after that event. A very high profile incident in everyone's recent memory originated from an area under their watch, so my guess is the paranoia stems from their desire to never be associated with such an incident ever again.

The paranoia runs deep elsewhere. Though not the first skyscraper you'd ever think to target, Boston's John Hancock Tower (tallest building in New England) is similar to the World Trade Center towers in which the elevators and stairwells are all contained within the core of the building. Working in the building, I can definitely say that security gets a bit antsy when the turnstiles buzz when something may be awry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I agree with Mr. Nee that police officers "are entitled to the same rights as every citizen" because they, simply, are.

I believe any individual should be allowed to record anything they please. But I also believe the distribution should be controlled by those who can be identified in the recording.

The biggest deciding factor in this case should be if the recording was interfering with keeping the peace or not. If it's a personal issue, then the Officers were acting in a personal capacity and they were abusing their power. They should handle the situation the same way I would if someone were recording me.

If I reported to the Police that someone was unlawfully recording me, what do you think they would do?

<comment><USER21> You don't have the right to control any video/photo recording of yourself that's done in a public place. All you can do is cover your face and walk away.

EDIT: the person recording only needs your permission if the photo or video is going to be used to promote goods or services.

<comment><USER22> "The lawsuit argues that public places are not covered by this law."

What if they were? Could the local news do a live broadcast from the street without fear that someone would walk up behind them, shout something, and then claim that his rights had been violated?

<comment><USER9> I am pretty sure anyone can _claim_ anything. I think you would have a pretty hard time going anywhere with a case against the news people, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I thought police in LA were going to start wearing cameras on their heads to record everything!

<http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580667,00.html>

Isn't that fairly strong evidence that it's OK to record public interactions without consent?

<comment><USER23> > Isn't that fairly strong evidence that it's OK to record public interactions > without consent?

Possibly, in California, but not in Massachusetts.

Compare the 3rd paragraph of this page:

<http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/california.html>

with the first paragraph of this:

<http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/massachusetts.html></comment></comment>


Report: Steve Jobs Happy With Apple's Tablet, Fast Tracks It For Early 2010  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/24/report-the-large-form-ipod-touch-apples-tablet-on-track-for-early-2010/ <comment><USER2> As TC points out, one of the biggest unknowns is how they are going to handle the bandwidth demands - and suitable reimbursement for the carriers - how that will be priced/packaged to keep from pinching the end consumers too painfully.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I have to wonder if the long (till Q1 2010) wait isn't as much due to hashing out possible deals with potential wireless carriers:

"And we shouldn't have to wait a year or more for the device, the goal is Q1, according to the report. This indicated just a small slip from the Fall 2009 launch that we had initially been hearing."

[ Though on reflection, the whole _customize-your-own-cpu_ is probably throwing in some of its own monkey wrenches. ]</comment></comment>


Internet Usage Surpasses Television Among Canadians - <AUTHOR> http://www.calgaryherald.com/Internet-usage-overtakes-watching-Report/2710837/story.html <comment><USER2> As a recent immigrant to Canada form the UK, I am not surprised by this. I have seen Canadian TV; I do not intend to do so again.</comment>


Startups that Make Big Revenue without Salespeople - <AUTHOR> http://notonlyluck.com/2013/03/06/startups-that-make-big-revenue-without-salespeople/

<comment><USER2> Hiring sales teams can be delayed in most cases by simply integrating with every platform that that can generate top-of-funnel traffic for you. There is an upfront engineering cost, but in the long-term it will seriously drive down your CPCA rates.

Obvious, but necessary tidbit for rookies: Integrate with platforms, not in order of most traffic, but BEST (highly-qualified) traffic.

Minor critique of the article. Would have loved to have seen more examples. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice comments. Another commenter that posted on the article's page pointed out SEOmoz as another example and also shared a video of Atlassian.</comment></comment>


Zuckerberg Wants Kids to Join FB, Uses Bogus Excuse to Say Why They Can't - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackeducation.com/2011/05/20/mark-zuckerberg-wants-kids-under-13-to-join-facebook-uses-bogus-coppa-excuse-to-justify-why-they-cant/ <comment><USER2> I create kids sites for a living and having spent too many hours locked up in rooms with lawyers I can tell you that COPPA isn't a bogus excuse. You'd need to have parents give permission to facebook to collect marketing data — as if that weren't enough of an uphill struggle keep in mind the number of lawsuits against Facebook dealing with issues like bulling and other scary issues like online predators.

Unless Facebook were to invent a special account (or a special domain like Facebook Jr.) it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. Also kids get very tired of social networks — as it is there are many under-13 kids with fake accounts who abandon them within a few months because the site no longer seems cool.</comment>


Bland God: Notes on Mark Zuckerberg (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://stingingfly.org/2018/06/27/bland-god-notes-on-mark-zuckerberg/ <comment><USER2> That link seems to be down - [http://web.archive.org/web/20200603144637/https://stingingfl...](http://web.archive.org/web/20200603144637/https://stingingfly.org/2018/06/27/bland- god-notes-on-mark-zuckerberg/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a better article than the typical personality piece or character assassination, but the thread here shows the problem with these things: there just isn't that much to discuss. Once a public figure or celebrity has grown beyond a certain size—I don't know what the threshold is, but it's lower than 1 Zuckerberg—they become a generic theme, and people mostly just repeat their pre-existing feelings about them, as well as practicing the social rituals that humans do on such occasions.

Public figures of this sort become cartoon characters [1]. The way we relate to them reminds me of how the Greeks used to talk about their gods, and at times also of the feces-hurling behavior in other primates. I don't mean that dismissively, I mean it almost literally (e.g. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23406290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23406290)). These discussions are fascinating because they're so repetitive and so consistent. But their content is not interesting, because they're not about content. They're deep social behavior.

It's always been a principle on HN to emphasize content over personalities [2], and that principle has served well over the years. I think I've learned something about why: it's because intellectual curiosity and social curiosity are different things. Social curiosity is what lies behind gossip, fascination with celebrities, and so on—the lives of others, if it's ok to adapt that phrase. Intellectual curiosity has to do with expanding one's view of the world. Both are deeply human, but HN is a site specifically for intellectual curiosity. That explains why articles and threads like this invariably miss the bullseye here.

[1] [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20cartoon%20characters&sort=byDate&type=comment) \- I recalled using this phrase further back, too, and found it here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6429252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6429252) \- 7 years ago, and also about Zuckerberg.

[2] [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20content%20persoinalit&sort=byDate&type=comment)

</comment><comment><USER4> This article specifically points out Zuckerberg's sweating at D8. This may have been a different instance, or I may be wrong.

But I seem to recall a story that at this event the temperature was turned up because Jobs was so sick. Can anyone else corroborate this? It may have been in Issacson's book.

edit: found it, it was at a dinner with Obama in Feb 2011: [https://books.google.com/books?id=6e4cDvhrKhgC&pg=PA545&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=6e4cDvhrKhgC&pg=PA545&lpg=PA545&dq=steve+jobs+walter+isaacson+%22sweating%22+zuckerberg&source=bl&ots=clyRxaT28d&sig=ACfU3U0G06g5zRsE1j5PHvDcd6Zw0XK4Xg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjah- yznubpAhUEPH0KHcDgAr4Q6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=steve%20jobs%20walter%20isaacson%20%22sweating%22%20zuckerberg&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER5> > Easier to conceive of Mark Zuckerberg as a machine.

The memes of Zuckerberg as Data from Star Trek always amuse me.[0] Sure, it's teasing, but Data is a likable character! Data doesn't strive to be superior but to be more human, even if this means being analytical instead of emotional.

Mark Zuckerberg would be far more interesting if he were "evil"\--if he tried to create new values, if he tried to replace God. But he isn't even an atheist anymore and is embracing religion and Judaism[1].

And then of course we must separate the man from the corporation: Facebook is a public company has an obligation to its shareholders to make money. Facebook stopped being about Zuckerberg a long time ago... it is now about surveillance capitalism.

[0] [https://i.kym- cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/354/185/719...](https://i.kym- cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/354/185/719.png)

[1] [https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-mark-zuckerberg- embraced-h...](https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-embraced-his- judaism/)

<comment><USER6> Frankly, I would take a machine as an leader over a lot of other options we have. Predictability and lack of emotional outbursts would be great qualities to have in a leader.

<comment><USER7> But what do you do when it starts basing everything on statistics or something less/not compassionate to life? And who determines what metrics and data it uses to make its decisions?

Zorlot-19 has decided to end the lives of everyone over 90 and that drinks mountain dew because its determined its a net negative on.. what, GDP, mortality rate, fertility rates, tax rates..

Seems like a compassionate overlord would be great but we've fallen for that a few thousand times in history.

edit: While I'm here, anyone have any interesting books on robots/droids/overlords/whatever beginning to manage society?

edit2: Found this; [https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi- fantasy/a-reading...](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi- fantasy/a-reading-list-inspired-by-the-20th-anniversary-of-the-matrix-and- that-sequel-announcement/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone really believe he could be elected president someday? (mentioned in the article)

<comment><USER9> Just those who will make it their business to believe it's possible (politcal consultants). Exhibit A: Bloomberg campaign

If they were eligible, Schwarzeneggar (years ago) or Musk (now), would have a better shot —- still small —- because it would be a circus. And we have evidence that a circus can get you elected.

<comment><USER10> Schwarzenegger would be a walk-in, regardless of which party he gets behind him.

There is a parallel reality where Democrats pushed hard to change the eligibility rules during Obama's second term, selected Ahnold, and continued the Obama legacy of slow-going, moderate social progress. Sadly we are in a darker timeline.

<comment><USER11> Arnold took a political beating from both sides when he failed to accumulate the capital to push any of his ideas through, and the experience appears to have left the governor with no enthusiasm to continue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> (2018)

<comment><USER3> Added. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Putting your life on the line for a 50% chance to fail - <AUTHOR> http://drstarcat.com/archives/176

<comment><USER2> Summary: dude gives a demo in front of potential investors hoping that the app won't break.

Except, wrapped in several layers of self-aggrandizing drama. An awful lot of hat for very little cattle.

<comment><USER3> Pretty harsh. Every entrepreneur I know is on an emotional roller-coaster, but that's one aspect of our role that we don't tend to talk about. Often the toughest issues might seem trivial from an outsider's perspective, or even from your own perspective after some time has passed.

I recognized a lot in his account, and it was good to see someone being honest about the internal drama, even at the risk of appearing ridiculous.

<comment><USER2> Well, you know, we've all got problems. I'm sure some people on this site have experienced hardship and risk that goes far beyond flubbing a demo.

<comment><USER4> So... you're trivializing this guy's experience because somewhere out there, someone else has it worse?

His experience isn't worth writing about because, somewhere out there, someone has experienced something more interesting?

I don't see the logic.

I don't get the negativity here - I thought it was a well-written account of the kind of last minute ninja dance before any launch. The author certainly had a lot riding on the demo, and I didn't find it self-aggrandizing in any overt way.

<comment><USER2> His life is on the line to the extent that he'll have to work a couple more high-paying computer jobs if he fails to get funding this time around. It's not exactly Russian roulette with three bullets in the cylinder.

I found the histrionic tone and especially the title of the article to be out of all proportion with the content. I don't think my description was in any way unfair. The article does a sufficiently good job of trivializing itself.

<comment><USER4> _"It's not exactly Russian roulette with three bullets in the cylinder."_

Nor did he ever claim it to be... I think you're reading far more into that post than was ever implied. It's clear that he has a large amount of personal money invested, and that this demo could be the make-or-break moment for his company - and a culmination of perhaps years of preparation and work. I think that qualifies as a big deal.

You're still trying to trivialize this man's experiences.

<comment><USER5> "Nor did he ever claim it to be"

He totally did. He said he put his life on the line. What really got put on the line was his lifestyle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> His life is not on the line. He will have the opportunity to take more risks in the future. When he tries out armed robbery, I'll start to believe he's putting his life on the line.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is why I record screencasts for anything that could possibly go wrong in a live presentation. This also frees you from having to remember exactly everything you wanted to do in which order. You only need to remember what you're narrating.

</comment><comment><USER8> Boy reading that piece really brought me back to my own struggles. Truth is you probably have a 75% chance of failure.

It is surprising to me that many years after the fact that you only remember the highs and not the lows.

<comment><USER9> The people that remember only the lows wouldn't become entrepreneurs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why is everybody falling over the choice of words instead of reading the intent ? Clearly putting your life on the line is meant metaphorically, and a 50% chance to fail is probably generous.

Give the guy a break, he's gone the distance, put his money where his mouth is and his future is riding on this, on top of that he's open about it.

Kudos from me, if half the armchair entrepreneur-wannabes in the world would be doing what he's doing it would be a good thing. You really shouldn't discount the emotional roller coaster that a start-up is.

Idle words indeed.

</comment><comment><USER11> Sorry, perhaps I am doing things wrong, but when I give demos to customers or potential investors it's always with ~1 day old trunk.

Do people really just show screenshots or screencasts?

<comment><USER12> Screencasts are just plain smart when you have your demo, your single shot, your company, on the line. Don't count on the internet working anywhere (especially not a VC's conference room), or EC2 staying up, or your server on your laptop staying up. Give a well paced talk over a perfect screencast and nail it. It's not worth the risk - ever.

<comment><USER11> I've been doing demo's for years, and have performed hundreds and maybe I have been lucky, but have had no major issues.

Our demos are also usually performed with trunk code or 1-2 days old at most.

How do you handle it when you get a question about a particular aspect and can't show it?

<comment><USER12> You can show it - you should always have access to your app, whether locally on your pres machine or remotely via the hosts internet, but never, never, leave the presentation demo up to chance. There are enough risks in this process, why add one more huge one?

And yes, you've been VERY lucky. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tough crowd :O I thought it was a really interesting insight into the 'softer' side of starting up, the stress and personal investment of a founder in his company. I know how stressful live demos are even to a fairly sympathetic audience who are going to give you another chance if things go horribly wrong; I could really identify with his description of it knowing how much was riding on it going well.

Good luck to him.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would be very interested in a data point of a successful startup headed by a non-technical founder whose principal role is to harangue and berate and exalt his tech team. Oh, and to make Excel spreadsheets

<comment><USER15> <http://apple.com>

(Steve was medium-technical, back in the day, though IIRC he never designed any of Apple's hardware or wrote any of their software.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This headline is false.

Flipping a coin has a 50% chance to fail, because there's little you can do to affect that probability.

There's a lot you can do to affect the probability of success in a start-up. In fact, _everything_ you do affects that probability.

This is like comparing video poker to a slot machine. On one, you have an opportunity for input. On the other, you don't. So they're not the same thing.</comment>